You Done Typed . . ..
Heh, I'm not as aged as you, but looks like we've got some common interests! My first computer was the Coleco ADAM, with cassette drives and cartridge slot! I learned BASIC on it. The ADAM disappeared from our house when we got an XT machine. I still miss both machines, and really wish I still had the XT. The old PCs, XTs and ATs were made of steel, and nothing short of a direct lightening strike would hurt it.
I dropped an AT at work from a 7 foot shelf onto a hard slate floor. The chassis was slightly tweaked, but I reseated all the equipment and it fired up, no problems. Do that today with a current machine and you're likely to get PC fodder everywhere.
I did my time writing in BASICA, then QuickBasic. Here's a link to some of my material that I wrote in high school:
http://www.slowcoder.net/basic
Take a look at them if you like.
Heh....my first was a Trash 80 (TRS 80) and that's where I learned Basic...
I was 30 at the time, and turned into a little kid I was so fasinated by it.
Back then you bought books of Basic code for programs: there was little or no "pre coded" casettes available
You could use regular casettes, just be carefull and not rewind back to the leader...
After I upgraded to a whopping 16k, I tackled typing the Basic code for this, at the time, state of the art needed 16k to run game: Star trek!
8 x 8 Grid, various klingons in each square, it was really something, boy...
To get a somewhat feel for it, there's still a startrek game that has the same basic premise: EGATrek.
Course it was drawn with ascii, in Black and white, and all keyboard commands.
Checked out your site! Pretty neat. Oh, I'd forgotten about...Line Numbers!
100 GOTO 150
150 GOTO 220
220 GOTO 100
Heh.......
I had a buddy of mine open a computer repair shop back in the XP days:
I'd help him out from time to time, and you're right, those were built like tanks.
I found everything from paper clips to little kids toys in the drive....
I remember when I upgraded to......a 286! Wow........
10 Meg Hard drive, as I recall........
Hey, you remember these Programs?
SLED
LIST
Scan32
Sidekick
The Draw
Fido
ZZT
Speaking of Fido..... How about...BBS's?
Single file programs, that if you changed any attributes like the color scheme, it would clone itself to the new settings.